One of the oldest clichés in sports is, “The best offense is a good defense.” And that principle certainly applies to successful strategies in sports public relations.

The NBA and commissioner David Stern showed us an example last week of a strong PR defense with a preemptive strike intended to squash potential PR damage regarding the current referee lockout.

With training camps opening up and no end in sight to the current labor issues, the NBA is using replacement refs for preseason and possibly regular season games. Of the 62 replacement refs hired, more than half are from the NBA’s Development League (D-League) 1.

Quite frankly, labor issues of any kind for a sports league is a real drag. Whether it’s a players strike, a lockout or, in the NBA’s case, a referrers’ lockout, the league becomes increasingly susceptible to negative publicity for a variety of reasons.

Obviously for the NBA right now, the lurking PR damage stems from the extra scrutiny on the quality of the officiating and the subsequent behavior and attitudes of its coaches and players.

The NBA also locked out its officials in 1995, using replacement refs for the first six weeks of the season.

It was a PR nightmare.

Although all major sports leagues, including the NBA, absolutely prohibit public criticism of its officials, coaches and players routinely complained to the media during the ’95 lockout about the quality of the replacement refs (the league had relaxed its policy of no critical comments and did not issue any fines during the lockout).

So learning from past mistakes, the NBA issued a league-wide memo Thursday reaffirming its rules about criticizing referees and reiterated that severe fines will be issued to anyone who does not comply.

“The replacement referees should be allowed to perform their difficult task free of public criticism by team personnel,” the memo stated.

The NBA has also backed the memo with an aggressive media push, announcing that the replacement refs are competent and qualified to call NBA games and the on-court product will not suffer.

“Our regular referees are, without question, the 60 best referees in the world,” Joel Litvin, the NBA president of league and basketball operations said to reporters during a conference call. “…But given the circumstances, we’re very prepared for this, and I have no doubt these guys can effectively officiate NBA games.”2

By anticipating potential PR problems, the NBA wisely enacted a strategy to:

1. Deter its coaches and players from drawing unwanted media attention to the less experienced refs
2. Reflect support and confidence by the league, via the media, in the replacement refs so fans and sponsors can feel secure that the games won’t be affected

A well played move by a league with perhaps the best PR department in the biz.

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[1] Howard Beck, “No Criticism of Referees, of Any Sort,” New York Times, October 2, 2009

[2] Jeff Zillgitt, “Just whistle: NBA Replacement Refs Ready To Tip Off Preseason,” USA Today, September 29, 2009